Yesterday morning, while driving my son to preschool, I turned on KPCC and heard Mayor Garcetti in the midst of talking about someone. All I heard was, "... he was literally the most universally liked man in Hollywood," and I knew that Tom Sherak had died.

What I carry from him, like coins in my pocket against the poverty of his loss, is an understanding that all any of us has is whatever is left of the day. And I make the most of it, hay while the sun shines, and I raise a toast to life.

She looked at me and asked if I had anything to say. It all came out at once; I burst into tears, unable to speak. She apologized for the years she was hard on me, saying she only wanted me to be successful. It didn't matter what words she used. I understood her meaning, and forgave her.

But there is also a truth, the "good news," which far fewer of us have experienced, which is that there is an end to suffering. Not an escape, but an end. And it doesn't come at death; it comes when we face our suffering, face our fears, and address them head on, with support, and move through them.

While I love my husband, and can't imagine what it would be like to lose him after living and breathing the air he did for 50 years, I am committed to creating an existence that does not completely and utterly revolve around him.

Please remember you are not alone. There are millions of other lives all around you. Each a person feeling happiness and sadness, each a person you may have the opportunity to meet, to know, to share a burden with, to like and/or to love.

What makes it so difficult to grieve our children is that when they are lost, we are lost. Hope waning, so, too, is our wonder, our gaiety, our reveling in the miracle of life, the promise of tomorrow.